Vegetarian Duck

This vegetarian Peking duck recipe is one that will surprise you. It tastes just like real duck. It's a recipe that is being used throughout all vegetarian restaurants in Hong Kong.

What you will need is fresh frozen bean curd sheets like this one. Do not use the dried bean curd sheets as it will not work, you will need frozen bean curd sheets. The texture should be like "plastic". These bean curd sheets are made out of soy beans.

So the first thing you do is fold them up, moisten them up in a bowl of water until they are white colored and have the soft texture. This will take half an hour. Afterwards we make sure the water gets drained, we put some holes in the "duck" and deep fry them.

Here's how you prepare it.

Here's how you fry it.

And here's how you make the sauce and mix it with the fried bean curd sheets. We use: anis, sesame oil, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, vegetarian oyster sauce, salt, sugar, mushroom flavour and water. Just throw them together and the magic will happen.

Then we just cut up the duck and we have created Vegetarian Duck!

Vegetarian Chow Mein

This is my favourite Chinese dish, I always eat this at the restaurant and it's vegetarian.

Basically you need 2 things. The egg noodles and the vegetable mix. Let's start with the egg noodles.

1) Egg noodles

You need to find yourself these thin dried egg noodles. Any brand is ok. I use the Sau Tao Egg Noodle brand.

Boil them in water for 5 minutes until they are loosened up. Strain them until dry, then fry them in sunflower oil until they are crispy. Don't fry them too long. That's the first part.

2) Vegetable mix

You will need fried tofu, blanched broccoli, shitake, green vegetables, sliced carrots. Anything will do. Put a good amount of oil in your wok and add all your ingredients. Stir fry them while adding some salt and pepper. Also add water to create a base for the soy sauce. After cooking it for several minutes you will add the soy sauce. I use a mixture of oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, sesame oil and light soy sauce. When the taste is ok, lower the heat and add a potato flour/water mixture to thicken the sauce. It's all experimental. Just try it. What you can also do is add all the ingredients together and then pour the sauce in the vegetable mix all together.

These are the sauces that I use.

Wan Ja Shan Vegetarian Oyster Sauce

Kimlan Light Soy Sauce

Lee Kum Kee Dark Soy Sauce

Potato Flour to Thicken Sauce

Then you just pour the sauce on top of the fried egg noodles and it's done!

The preparations:

The real cooking stuff:

Brownie

Very, very nice recipe and ridiculously easy to make. The brownie with a soft inner body and a crunchy coat.

You will need:
- 60 g butter
- 130 g pure chocolate (without sugar)
- 60 g sugar (if you need more sugar you can go till 80 g)
- pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- 75 g flour
- pinch of cacao powder

First melt the chocolate with the butter on low heat. Then mix the sugar, salt, egg, cacao powder in a separate bowl. Add the two mixtures together. Slowly add the flour into the mixture while mixing.

Bake for 35 minutes at 160 °C.

This is the result and it's delicious.

Another recipe is from a colleague of mine and seems to be a completely different recipe:

1. Mix 100 g butter with 100 g of pure chocolate. Trade in butter for a bit of vegetable oil/coconut oil to get chewiness.
2. Mix 200 g (dark brown sugar + granulated white sugar) to 2 eggs for 10 minutes. (white sugar glazes the top of the brownie, brown sugar gives texture)
3. Mix the eggs/sugar mixture with the chocolate mixture.
4. Fold 100 g self-raising flour to the mixture.
5. Approximately 20-30 minutes in the oven at 170 °C. Do not overbake.